According to the US Department of Labor, over 31,000 workmen are injured each year from stress and strain injuries caused by lifting, reaching, pulling and bending. For electricians, the job of feeding wires through conduits on building sites is a laborious, time consuming job that causes excessive strain on the shoulders, arms, back and wrists. These problems are exacerbated when reaching in hard to access areas such as junction boxes in ceilings, conduits in gutters and panels, light standards, underground conduits, and the like. While the Occupational Health and Safety Agency (OSHA) has provided guidelines with the aim of reducing work related injuries, such guidelines are often overlooked in favor of job efficiency.
Current products available for pulling wire, often called “tuggers,” are big, bulky and not optimally designed for branch circuits, the most common of wire pulling jobs for electricians. Moreover these are time consuming to set up and manage, and are often too big to access confined areas. Accordingly, electricians often resort to pulling wire by hand using a rope, fish tape, mule tape, or string, leading to physical stresses and strains.
What is needed, therefore, is a small, portable and compact electric winching system that is both powerful and stable enough to provide the necessary torque, small enough to be used in the confined areas, and only requires a single operator. It also needs to be quick to setup and engage a line to encourage usage over manual pulling.